Ayn Rand Worshippers: It's Time to for Progressives to Go Galt on You

This article articulates perfectly how I feel about certain libertarians and conservatives. I recently moved from a blue state to a red state, and I see the truth in it. You must read the entire article to get the full meaning and effect, but here is an excerpt:

"America's real producer class is overwhelmingly concentrated in the blue cities and states -- the regions full of smart, talented people who've harnessed technology and intellect to money, and made these regions the best, most forward-looking places in the country to live.

And the real parasites are centered in red states (the only exceptions being states with huge resource reserves, like Alaska and Texas) -- the unimaginative, exhausted places that have clung to a fading past, rejected science, substituted superstition for sense, and refused to invest in their own futures. It's not unfair to say that those regions are simply feasting off the sweat of our ennobling labor, and expecting us to continue supporting them as they go about their wealth-destroying ways.

And we producers have had enough.

Progressives Go Galt!"

another excerpt:

"First off, dear Red Staters: If your townâ��s economy depends on a nearby dam, canal, harbor, airport, military base, interstate highway, national park or monument, or prison, just STFU. Because you are, in every way possible, a parasite, living off something the rest of us paid to build."

and another:

"If you want to pretend global warming isn't happening, you do not get to come whining to us when you get hit with droughts or floods. We're not going to send FEMA to bail you out. We're not going to build canals to give you our water. We're not going to fund your levees. If you're so sure God will provide, go ask him to keep your reservoirs full and your cities dry. Because we resign."

Actually the story is not accurate. In reality, all states are getting about the same amount of funds for the "parasites" the article talks about. If you add up all blue, then all the red, divide it by the number of those red or blue Senators and here is what you get:

Red receives $1.21 per SenatorBlue receives $ 1.14 per Senator.

This is a mute argument. Those figures are so close. Reality is that all states are getting funding for their entitlement programs from the Government and those programs need to be looked at to get rid of the fraud in them.

You miss the point, You claim and the article claims that R Senators get more. I used the numbers in the article and proved the article was not accurate. It is not a wide margin and honestly it is not worth debating or pointing fingers that the Dems Senators get more, they are all guilty of it Repubs and Dems.

I also have to apologize for I posted the numbers incorrectly in the last post. It should have said

I think the point is that there are proportionally more "parasites" (an Ayn Rand term by the way, not one typically adopted by liberals) in red states than in blue states and that blue states pay out more money than they receive back while red states receive more money than they contribute.

An interesting way to massage the numbers, but you're still only looking at half the picture.

To see the whole, you also have to look at how much tax money flows out of the red and blue states, and compare that to how much flows back in.

Even that isn't a complete picture, because you have outlying states like West Virginia messing up the curve.

The article correctly illustrates that most of the so-called "blue states" pay more money to the federal government than they get from the federal government, and that most of the so-called "red states" receive more money from the federal government than they pay in taxes to the federal government.

And that's okay.

But the Right are trying to paint liberals as parasites, while the facts show that it's actually mostly the liberal states who are subsidizing the conservative states.

Again, there's nothing wrong with some states helping out the other states. But the right is claiming that yes, there is something wrong with this situation. That would be fine by itself, but the Right is also trying to pretend that their constituency aren't taking more than they're giving.

The first claim is a difference of opinion, which would be fine by itself.The second claim is not a difference of opinion but a falsification of data.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but nobody is entitled to their own facts.

"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but nobody is entitled to their own facts"I used the same formulas, or facts, the article claimed to be using, so if you claim my numbers are false, then the one supplying the numbers are false. The article breaks the claim down to Senators per state and how much they get. All I did was check their numbers and they did not work.

What I would like to see is the actual report that makes that claim, show me the actual numbers by state and what they are including and excluding from the study. That would show exactly where the dollars are going and where.

I ran the numbers and came much closer to the results in the chart than you did. Slight differences can result from rounding. I suspect you have an error in your calculations to get such a different result.

Hey you have a deal! I have long held the left should take a section of the country as their own and make it a separate nation. Prove you progressive ideas will actually succeed on their own before you subject the 80% of the rest of us who were fine before you started all this.

It will be interesting to see what happens when you run out of everyone else's money.

Oh by the way John Galt would have spat on the progressives of today. I was amazed when I read that book and actually found some of the liberal statements in the opinion page of a modern paper. Progressive liberals never change.

Did you read the article? Most of the money, innovation, education, and new ideas come from progressive urban areas in blue states who also contribute more money to the government than they take, while red states typically take more than they contribute. That was the point. Yet, it's the red staters who whine about investing tax dollars in those things that provide safety and comfort for everyone.

So, if we were to "separate" (this is all theoretical, of course), it would make sense that the libertarians and conservatives who "want to drown government in a bathtub" start over in a place where no government money has been used to construct roads, provide clean water, inspect food, or insure banks. I mean, all of that stuff can be done better by the private sector, right?

Most of us progressives would be quite happy to continue investing our tax dollars toward a society with fair wages for work, health insurance, clean water, alternative energy, innovative education, and earned benefits for those who fall on hard times.

Ok that was fun.In order for your idea to be valid everyone in those blue states, which may or may not have been completely blue during the industrial revolution, who had part in innovation would have had to be progressives. i highly doubt that is the case.

Now let's look at another interesting aspect here.So the bluer states had the technology and resources to pull these things off? Where did the money come from? Were the people in those states not wealthier? Did the people in the redder states not do most of the agricultural labor that fed those in the blue states? Also if those were wealthy people weren't they capitalists and therefore evil?

Now let's talk about John Galt. Have you actually read Atlas Shrugged? If so you will know that John Galt led a revolt against socialist unions that were tied to the increasingly socialist government. They broke away and created their own society much I as have encouraged progressives to do in a hub of mine.They succeeded. They did so because they believed in the free market and capitalism. They allowed their industry and ideas to flourish and theirs was the more honest society.I believe if you actually had a nothing but progressives society it would fail and collapse in on itself shortly. Keynesian economics unfettered would take it's toll. Plus the fact that progressives don't like being taxed at the level they demand others endure....well there would be a revolt, That;s the main thing you are good at. Rioting in the streets.

They broke away and created their own society much I as have encouraged progressives to do in a hub of mine.They succeeded. They did so because it was a work of fiction, over which the author had complete control. The Galtian enclave prospered because Ayn Rand wanted it that way, and the rest of the world crumbled because (surprise!) Ayn Rand wanted it that way. The fact that the Galtian enclaves prospered--despite the fact that they were populated solely by people whose entire philosophy of life can be summed up as "I've got mine, screw you"--is pretty good evidence that Atlas Shrugged is a ham-handed work of propaganda.

In the real world, the success of failure of the Galtian enclave(s) would depend on whether said enclaves had people who were able to provide for all the inhabitants' needs, including food production, clothing manufacture, medicine, housing, etc etc, etc, and also people willing to actually do work. Further, since there is no law beyond "what's mine is mine," there would necessarily be all kinds of violence whenever there's a difference of opinion about the ownership of a given piece of land, equipment, food, etc.

Most of the folks you'd get "going Galt" today would be bankers and brokers and the like, who are certainly skilled at making money by moving money (which seems like alchemy to me) but who probably wouldn't have a frigging clue about how to bring in a grain harvest or sew a shirt from cloth.

I think you would find, should you care to look, that in the areas of the nation where we are considered red that we have already pretty much gone Galt.You would never know it because the media won't let you.

Oh by the way also. Last night I went with my son to see "The Hunger Games".Great film! It also was a really vivid picture of a socialist society in the mold we are working towards now. Big government which controls the people through the opiate of the masses.The government/entertainment people portrayed in this story were an extension of those in place in the business now. It was a great but chilling vision.

I have heard that in these states, people can get nothing on the radio but right wing and religion talk propaganda, which would account for their attitudes, and that would be attributed to these capitalist corporations that now own all major media.

I'm really quite tired of all the namecalling- the "right wingnuts" and the "Democraps" and whatever contemptuous names people come up with.

Seriously. Both parties have their problems and corruption, and both have their strengths. Both produce propaganda and tell untruths to further their aims. The Constitution was written through compromise. Can we please stop blaming all our nation's current problems on one specific political party and insulting anyone who belongs to all parties with different views?

One party or group does not have all the solutions. We need level headed people in office who truly have the best interests of all citizens at heart and are willing to work together (without the influence of special interests) instead of obstinately calling everyone else names because they can't risk alienating the section of the populace that got them elected.

It speaks very loudly to both parties when a centrist who has time and again voted across the aisle steps down. It will hit the GOP hard in November if her seat is filled with a Democrat. Maine goes blue for a Democrat president.

I think she said she is going to do something more effective with her time....and I honestly don't think it's the Dems that are the problem. Or Republicans for that matter. I honestly believe it is the extreme cult of Baggers.

Gvr's Walker, Kasich, Snyder. Roy Blunt and his "let your boss decide your healthcare" amendment...which Romney didn't agree with until his money-bags set him right, and Marco Rubio...all are working to dismantle the America we live in and replace it with a theological corporation where women are subservient to men, and workers have no say in their lives...

All of the R candidates signed the personhood amendment.My senator Scott Brown is for the Blunt amendment....it's all of them!

She has been a Senator for Maine for 17 years. She is tired of the bickering. But she is nearly70 years old, it was thought for a while now she was going to retire. I doubt the two Dems who are viaing for the shot at the seat even before she retired have much of a chance. Maine has two Repub Senators since the seventies and maybe even earlier even though they voted for a Dem President in the last 4 elections.

Whatever you say, I guess a 70 year old cannot retire if she is a Repub, but a Dems who say the same thing can. No one denies what she said, but that was the final straw that sent her to retirement. And she blames EVERYONE, but of course you only hear what you want.

Before that, she and Collins worked with Obama on the Stimulus, remember? They made him take out money for job-creating and put it into more tax cuts. Compromise....He worked with them, and they with him.

And yes they worked on it but he would not work with them and they voted against it.

He worked with Congress, when. Like Obamacare and all the tax hikes, less people covered, the higher rates and less coverage it gave, the gas tax hike, the appointments by EO, the regulations by EO, IF that is working together, he should just stay home

Is this an egotistical God?Is this a quantum God that doesn't exist without observers?Was this a bored God that wanted playthings?Why would a totally perfect and self containing alpha-omega need/want creatures to...

What could potentially cause the collapse of the United States? Would it be an attack from overseas, terrorism, economical collapse inward, or from another civil war? These are all just examples, feel free...

An unbalanced psychopath commits a horrendous crime in Arizona and it's the result of conservative talk. Really? Let's see...from the liberals we've had a movie on assassinating George Bush, we've had an...

Harvey Weinstein announced at an awards ceremony (a few years ago) that he was the chief projectionist at the White House for Bill Clinton from 1992 to 2000. Harvey said they watched lots of movies together, and...